Not the cover, the book.
Not the title, the story.
Not the meal, those seated at the table.
Not the beginning or the end, the race.
Not the pain or the joy, the experience.
Not the starting of the stopping, the going.
Not the notes or the measures, the music.
Not the direction or the starts, the navigation.
Toby Baigrie, SRCI Institution Work Program Coordinator
This week, we rented a cottage on a farm while visiting eastern Oregon for our monthly workshops. We faced a corral that contained two donkeys, a horse, and a pony. On Tuesday night, a huge lightning storm came in over the hills from the southwest. At the apex high winds swept through the pasture as the sky flashed white and the animals took off running down field. The huge pen provided the animals with a sense of escape, though they couldn’t get away. For the next three months, our folks are writing about containers. As with all our themes, their writing stretches to the very edges of the idea. Jai starts us with Anchor Points: “A boat is a container, a box that floats…” while MDKS’s Beautiful Disaster provides us with the picture of a woman who contains a man’s desire: “You’re a woman made to hold, What a beautiful disaster.”
The Universe by Michael Stepina:
The universe is not a void of emptiness, nor is it black.
It is a spectacular blinding light of perception.
Everything happens in the night of day.
Ian Lohrman’s Weirya — Invoking Vak:
Silent mother of all word and sound,
cosmic womb of grace, truth and understanding,
your living information permeates the world,
flashing into the vastness, thus it has been
since the time when speech and magic were one.
Joshua Plourd’s Into the Inipi: The Sweat That Heals:
I crawled into the sweat lodge a couple days ago and settled into the comfort of earth’s womb. Drumming and singing songs of healing, I listen for the timeless voice that moves my spirit.
From Amir’Whadi Hassan’s ode to Joy Harjo, She Had Some Horses:
Drowned in the quiet of silence,
trapped in the stall of fear of their
own making.
In the morning, we kept the sliding door open to let in the fresh morning air after we fed treats to the horse and a donkey. As we sat in the kitchen drinking coffee, a large hairy form caught my eye. The entire doorway filled with a Muppety, brown tusked pig. Danny squealed in surprise (or maybe it was me.) Unfettered, the piggy stood silent, patiently awaiting the treats left on the counter by our hosts. Danny tossed out sliced pepperoni stick and quickly closed the screened door. The satisfied pig wandered off leaving us uncertain if he was a free roaming being or if he had escaped. Later, when we drove away, we spied him wallowing in the mud with the gate of the pen wide open. In Issue Number 11, we just might find ourselves free ranging the boundaries of containment. | TDS